The article was interesting and didn't mention too much new info, but I do have issue with the fact that they really only mentioned people losing weight on very low-calorie diets (500 cal and 800cal) which I wonder if that has something to do with people regaining weight.

We all know maintenance is more difficult than weight loss, but overall I found the article a bit troubling in that it seems to discourage weight loss by making both weight loss and maintenance seem even more difficult than they are.

I have to give the article props for mentioning that maintainers have to likely eat less and watch their food intake over people who haven't been overweight/obese.

A good diet is important.
Low-calorie diet is not enough. Our body finds that a future bad times and will try to survive, but when we return to a normal diet your body starts to accumulate stocks in case of re diet. This is a yo-yo effect. In addition, the body will accumulate more reserves in case of long diet. Everywhere in nature we find the law of contradiction
We need to remember about a balanced diet and not just about calories.

I, too, found it discouraging. But one thing she mentions is that maintainers have to exercise a lot more than those who are the same "natural" weight. She mentions something about walking 4 miles a day as the least and makes doing that seem unrealistic. However, long ago, I remember reading Thin for Life and making note of the fact that most successful maintainers seemed to exercise an hour or more a day. Now that I'm maintaining what I hope will be my last big weight loss, I do at least an hour a day of exercise (6 days a week), and I'm just taking it in stride. It's almost as if I've accepted that I will need to do this, and because of that acceptance, I haven't really minded doing it.

The study is complete bull....When your eating only 500-800 your body adjust. When they stopped trying to lose weight, and upped their calories, what is average for a normal person was far to much for them. So the weight piled back on. Besides nutrition factors, this is why no one should eat so few calories -.-.....

Its funny because instead of interfering and trying to create a controlled setting which did taint the results, they should have just studied people who have lost weight, and studied them over the course of a few years to find how many actually did gain....I couldn't really take this article seriously and it frustrated me *breathes*...I only read part of the first page as i'm in a hurry and have to get to work but i'll be coming back to it later.

You know what the problem with this study is? The dieters learned NOTHING. They learned that they had to starve on shakes and veggies to lose weight. Then they were left to their own devices to maintain that weight loss. People who were previously obese were that way for a reason. You can make all the excuses in the world but it all comes down to habits and nutrition.

I was an obese child. I was a obese teenager. I had NO grasp of the fundamentals of nutrition until I took it on myself to learn them during this weight loss journey. I wasn't successful until I learned the importance of not only how much I put in my body but WHAT.

Maintenance is easy. You just can't slip back into those familiar habits that put the weight on in the first place!!!

Its interesting because I read this article back before I started this bout of weight loss, I think. I was aware that being overweight but not obese improves survival of traumatic injury, but trouble was I was becoming increasingly obese. I thought I was fit but fat until I took a life insurance physical and my blood work came back with several areas of concern.
I don't get know if my concerted efforts to maintain my weight will last 2, 5, or 50 years, but that's my game plan.

I found the original article December 28, 2011. Interesting timing just when a lot of people make resolutions.

I haven't finished it, but strangely it has me psyched. I am losing a pound to two a week. And doing NOTHING I can't maintain, gladly for life. My 2 big things have been more exercise much more regularly. And lowering carbs. The lowering carbs has been awesome. I don't crave bread, fries, potato chips, ice cream, snack any more.

I think the whole approach to lose weight in the first place was absurd bordering on insane. Anything that follows after that can't really be taken seriously.

I've gotten everything back to the way it is supposed to work: less hunger, more fat burning. When I go off for a day or two I don't gain weight. My body and appetite are working much better. If the study shows one thing, don't do these extreme, crazy diets. Make lifestyle changes you can maintain for life.

Too bad the article was by Tara Parker-Pope. She obviously had an agenda based on her personal experience. My guess would be she hasn't found a diet, not dieting, but a long term diet that works for her. She said she doesn't eat fast food. But she can still consume a lot of bread, pasta, and potatoes.

I absolutely believe for my physiology I do horrible on carbs. I don't believe she cannot lose and keep it off if she finds a good healthy diet FOR her. And exercises regularly.

Despite my own personal success with Maintenance,
I find Maintenance to be VERY hard, and my own experience is identical to the Fat Trap article.

After a liftime of yo-yo dieting which involved almost every diet or way-of-eating,
At a height of 5'0", I'm almost 150 lbs below my all time highest weight.
I've maintained an 81 lb loss for about 20 years,
and so far I've maintained a 150 lb loss for about 9 years.

My body struggles continually to regain weight,
and despite my best, consistent, continual efforts at a variety of ways-of-eating,
including some long-term, low-carb efforts.
I have chosen to consistantly record everything I've eaten into a computer food journal
EVERY day for what is now more than 9 years.

Despite this fact, over the past 8 years, my body has crept up from 110 lbs. to it's current 125 lbs.
I'm now in my late 60s, and in order to maintain my current weight during the past year,
I have had to keep my Average daily calorie intake around 1050....
even during lengthy times when I chose to eat a low-carb plan (50 g of carbs or under).

Recent Studies show that there's no consistent difference in regain,
or difficulties of maintenance due to the method one uses to lose weight
...calories high or low, food balanced or not, weight-loss fast or slow.
Maintenance is hard for almost every obese person who becomes normal weight
...no matter HOW they got there.

I think that it's great that there are naturally normal-weight people,
and I understand that there are a few people around who can maintain a large weight-loss
for more than 5 years without much effort, (although I don't know any of them).
I'm not one of those people.

I don't see this truth as discouraging, and I admire those honest people who tell it like it is.
I Accept this as a Fact in my own life, just as I would any type of ongoing physical problem,
and I work very hard to do my personal best with the "hand I've been dealt".

My own experience is that maintenance cannot be sustained very easily without exercise.

Diet gets the weight off. Exercise keeps it off.

Exercise has allowed me to eat more without regaining weight. I am not sure by now whether I could have stayed as calorie restricted for so long.

When I look back, I used to eat tiny portions of not very much.

Now I eat massive portions of healthy food which fuels my exercise.

__________________Running because of DianaBelieving because of SueElvis lives!Getting fashion advice from SumReillyJ and Carpediem saved my knees!Don't believe the hype. EAT MORE FISH.If the bar ain't bendin', you're just pretendin'!

So glad that so many people called bull on this article. Personally what I feel it completely ignores is that food today is insanely massive. Of course... if you go back to eating what imho is insanely caloried foods, you are going to gain it back. Yes, your body will seem to hold on to every calorie because normal food today is not "normal" it is over caloried.

The more I see of allegedly normal people the more I see they eat low calories naturally. Either they prefer low calorie foods, enjoy exercise, or actively have a way of life of watching what they eat. Obese people learned to eat with utter abandon so, of course it hard later on to cut back.

My own experience is that maintenance cannot be sustained very easily without exercise.

Diet gets the weight off. Exercise keeps it off.

Exercise has allowed me to eat more without regaining weight. I am not sure by now whether I could have stayed as calorie restricted for so long.

When I look back, I used to eat tiny portions of not very much.

Now I eat massive portions of healthy food which fuels my exercise.

And the potential problem with that, is that when people who are using exercise as their way to keep things balanced, stop exercising they gain the weight right back. My sister was a hard core exerciser (marathon runner, zumba and spin classes ever week etc). She was in maintenance and ate a lot, but the exercise off set this. Then she broke her foot running and wasn't able to do any exercise for a couple months and she still can't run months later (dr's orders). You can guess what's happened

There are so many variables that come into play for maintenance-things WILL happen that will derail your plan-injury/sickness, life changes, tragedies etc etc. Even for those of us who think we have it figured out will face immense challenges over the course of trying to maintain (which in my case will hopefully be 50+ years oiy!). Maintenance really is a

Even for those of us who think we have it figured out
will face immense challenges over the course of trying to maintain.

NOTE:
I speak from the perspective of a 'reduced obese' person in her late 60s,
who has kept detailed daily written records for the past 9+ years
and except for a slight weight creep has maintained a very large weight loss for the past 8 years.

I'm chiming in here again to speak about my personal experience with exercise.
Exercise is beneficial for my overall health, .... but...
I've learned that .... for MY body ...
the amounts and types of additional exercise that is reasonably possible for me personally,
does almost nothing to help with weight-loss or with maintenance.

I've reached this conclusion from my own experience, from watching experiences of others, and from scientific articles on the subject.
I've been a member of the National Weight Loss Registry for more than 5 years,
and still frequently exercise,
however, I have learned that just because because most people who maintain their weight tend to exercise,
does not mean their exercise does much to help them maintain weight-loss.

During the past 9 years I've experimented with strength training, using my own body weight and light dumbells.
I've done lots of walking ... from 20 minutes a day 3 days a week as well as from 2 to 4 hours of walking 6 days a week.
For 2 separate 6 month periods I wore a "body bug" 24/7 to record my exercise.
According to the exercise recorded by that little computer,
AND the amount of calories I consumed during those two 6 month periods,
According to the Charts (Harris Benedict & Mifflin) I "should have" lost from 12 to 18 pounds.
I gained around a pound during each experiment.

Next I did some experiments of going long periods of time doing absolutely zero additional exercise, with exactly the same weight results.

I believe that exercise helps make a person healthy,
but ... for myself and many other people ... it is fairly useless as a weight-loss OR maintenance tool.

I do not speak for EVERYONE, .... of course no one can do that ...
but believe that speaking up on this issue is very important.